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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28877325">Off-Colour</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/inabsurd/pseuds/inabsurd'>inabsurd</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>natsu-gem [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Crystal Gems (Steven Universe), Angst, Bitter Exes, Blood, Character Study, Denial, F/F, Pining</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:26:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,306</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28877325</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/inabsurd/pseuds/inabsurd</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you love me, Sapphire?"</p><p>“Do you want to know why Homeworld considered me off-colour?”</p><p>In which neither Sapphire or Jade hear what they need to hear, or say what they need to say.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hinoe/Natsume Reiko</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>natsu-gem [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2117745</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Off-Colour</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>back again! this time with a little Hinoe POV. not much different from the last fic, I just wanted more of those angsty-exes vibes and also to get Hinoe's off-colour reveal out there. I wasn't 100% sure on tagging it F/F and Hinoe/Reiko since this is more bitter exes and also youkai and gems are BOTH bad at feelings so how tf do I write gem!Hinoe but [shrugs] let me know if it should be changed</p><p>In case anyone forgot:<br/>Jade = Reiko<br/>Sapphire = Hinoe</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Sapphire often thinks back to the day she met Jade, all those long years ago. She’s uncertain how many years, exactly, because the movement of this planet and this star are different to that of Homeworld, but it has been long enough to see many generations of humans come and go from the nearby town, or, so Jade tells her. Sapphire has never really been one to pay attention to human lifespans, but she does pay attention to Jade, and Jade remembers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sapphire was a con-artist by necessity. She knew right away that she is different, it’s obvious that she is. Sapphires are gifted with Sight, the type that allows them to predict the future as flawlessly as any gem can observe the present. It’s the single eye that does it, it must be, because while the other Sapphires and their lone eyes can See, she and her dual eyes cannot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is a good thing all Sapphires wear their bangs in front of their faces to hide their eye; it makes things easier for her. The Sight, that was harder to fake, but Sapphires are not so rare that she specifically was called upon all of the time, and so she only had to make her “predictions” so many times. Another point in her favour is the rigidity of gem and Court life; so much of the day-to-day is already scheduled and so there was very little error to be had when she was asked about upcoming events.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course, all that went out the window when, in a moment of supposed privacy, she pulled back her bangs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s hard to see with them in her face all day long. Regular Sapphires may not have to worry about tripping, but she does, and, when in her own abode, she would push her hair back. Not much, never much, just enough to be able to see.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her Ruby guards, two of them, walk in at the wrong moment and Sapphire, blind to what other Sapphires would have avoided easily, is spotted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She runs and the rest is all in the past.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It </span>
  <em>
    <span>is </span>
  </em>
  <span>in the past, right?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To Sapphire, the moment she met Jade feels more real than anything to come before or after. She will never forget the moment when the elite, a lower-class gem to be sure but an elite nonetheless, summoned a weapon and turned on Homeworld for her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was only natural to follow her after that. Jade must be even stranger than herself to do what she had done, and Sapphire would never survive on her own. She needs someone who doesn’t need Sight to see, and Jade fits the bill. Reckless, vibrant, bold, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>present</span>
  </em>
  <span> where Sapphire feels so out of place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’re a perfect match.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They’re off-colours, though, and they never get perfect.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>“Hey, hey. Did you know there were other lifeforms on this planet?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’re pretty strange looking. I don’t think they like me much, though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who could ever resist you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tonnes of gems. I guess it makes sense that these would be no different.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course you can’t. I’m an elite, aren’t I?”</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>Jade is young; Sapphire can tell right away. Of course, it makes sense that Jade would be an Era Two gem as off-colours are more plentiful in that group due to the lack of viable planets and resources, but besides that, Jade just acts </span>
  <em>
    <span>different. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Different in a way that has nothing to do with being off-coloured and everything to do with being Jade. She doesn't cling to Homeworld the way Sapphire does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sure, Sapphire will pin her hair up and trade in her ballgown for the local wear, and she will push aside her bangs freely so she can see where she's going without persecution, but she does not eat food as Jade does. She does not approach the humans as Jade does. She does not go about fighting for fun as Jade does.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>This is what you wanted, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Sapphire reminds herself. </span>
  <em>
    <span>A bold and reckless gem who wouldn't care about your inability.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She does still want that. She just wishes Jade wanted her too.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>"Do you love me, Sapphire?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Love is a </span>
  <em>
    <span>human thing,</span>
  </em>
  <span> isn't it?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I think so."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Then, no. I do not love you."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"...I see."</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>She loses Jade, and it's her own fault that it happens.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>“Do you want to know why Homeworld considered me off-colour?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jade is quiet for several long moments, not contemplative, not preoccupied, just...pulling at an elbow with her other hand. Stretching.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not really,” she says, standing up straight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is just as well. Jade probably wouldn’t remember come tomorrow anyway, and Sapphire would cling too firmly to an insignificant moment that means nothing.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>Jade loses her, and Sapphire doesn’t even realize, too caught up in their past.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>It comes to be commonplace that Sapphire has to wait long periods of time between seeing Jade. It starts off as small, insignificant day-trips around nearby human settlements, and then grows and grows and </span>
  <em>
    <span>grows </span>
  </em>
  <span>like fissures in a gem; irreplaceably changing who they are for something worse, something </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrong.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>They are not meant to be separated like this. It's cruel to leave when Sapphire has no way of Seeing when Jade will return, but then again, Jade does not know and so it would be crueller still to hold it against her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sapphire can wait. The future may be an endless and unpredictable beast, but she has survived before. Surely, this will be the last time anyway? Jade will return, and this time, she will stay. Won't she?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn't, and Sapphire treasures the past evermore for it.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>"Gems don’t have organic bodies, we </span>
  <em>
    <span>are</span>
  </em>
  <span> our gemstones. The fact that she has managed to encase hers in flesh doesn’t make her any less </span>
  <em>
    <span>her.</span>
  </em>
  <span> She must have chosen a male form just to spite me. She knows I hate men.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought you said I wasn’t her. When we...last time, when that thing happened?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> Jade. The gem on your palm? </span>
  <em>
    <span>That’s her.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Take it out. Take it </span>
  <em>
    <span>out.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>She should. She wants to, stars know that Sapphire wants to. She wants to grab this flimsy human boy, grab the hand he so rudely shoves at her and dig her nails into flesh until all the stuff he keeps inside beads and </span>
  <em>
    <span>seaps. </span>
  </em>
  <span>She wants to dig further, further, until she has a good grip on Jade and can yank her from her ridiculous disguise. She wants to hold Jade and shake Jade and fuse with Jade until Sapphire is </span>
  <em>
    <span>certain </span>
  </em>
  <span>the other knows how futile her little lie was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wants to. She could, but she won't.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sapphire cannot See. She is blind in the most crucial way a Sapphire can be and has no idea what the future holds. Back on Homeworld, they treated such a disability like a horrible defect despite it never being a problem.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On Earth, it has finally become one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sapphire cannot See and so she does not know what will happen if she pulls Jade from this boy's body. Will she reform? Will she need time before she can?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Will she come back at all?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. Jade did this to herself."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She cannot bear to be wrong and further mar the memory of her and Jade's time together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I’m sure once your body deteriorates, she’ll be back, but for now, she just has to live with it."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sapphire stands, walking away from the boy and her friend for the very first time. It was always Jade who did the leaving; it feels wrong to switch their roles so suddenly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I’ll still be here when her game is done. I always am.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She won't be. Sapphire has waited long enough, and she need not fear a future she will have no part of.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thanks for reading! kudos and comments are always appreciated! </p><p>you can find me on <a href="https://twitter.com/inabsurd">Twitter</a> or <a href="https://inabsurd.tumblr.com/">Tumblr</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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